I think the best of them all would be the M60A1, manned by US crews. AMX-30 were... Just a good gun. Leopard 1, would be the second best, but lacks armour. Chieftain, not marvellous, too unreliable and too few of them.

Among the others, centurion with 105mm would be great tanks, but the M48 are better in all aspects but the gun. The rest is just there to fill numbers.

VS this, there were:

T-64 and T-64A (USSR only)T-72 (ussr only as of 1975?)T-62T-55/55AT-54/A/B

The T-10M were probably relegated to reserve by then.

The best? I think T-64A, but T-72 is close second. T-62 and T-55 are great reliable tanks, and there were dozens of thousands of them. At this time, no tank has reactive armour.

What do you think? T-64A vs M60A1, or chieftain/leopard/amx-30? T-62 vs them? T-62 vs M48 and other second category tanks? T-55 vs them?

Personally I think the reds have the best tanks in 1975, they are clear winner in a ground war. Not only they have the best, but they have probably 2 to 3 times as much tanks that there are in western europe.

cracker wrote:The best? I think T-64A, but T-72 is close second. T-62 and T-55 are great reliable tanks, and there were dozens of thousands of them. At this time, no tank has reactive armour.

What do you think? T-64A vs M60A1, or chieftain/leopard/amx-30? T-62 vs them? T-62 vs M48 and other second category tanks? T-55 vs them?

It is no use to debate more about this subject. The best battle of tanks was provided by october 1973's war, in Sinai's battlefield. It showed an estonished result. In fact, the T-62 behaded very well during this war against the M-60, and other israeli's tanks. As well as during the bekaa battle during Lebanon's war in 1982. Indeed, the T-62 distinguished itself against Merkava, and other israelo-western's hardware.No use to tell more about the very efficient T-72, this tank would be very lethal even against the M1-Abrams in fair conditions.

Nevertheless, as we discussed before, the concept of the tank is definitly a lost cause. Without a total air domination you could not use correctly your tanks, moreover the armored vehicles showed that they are very vulnerable in urban area against modern anti tank missiles, or rocket, leaving a total collapse of the concept of tank.

Last edited by nemrod on Sun Nov 16, 2014 11:10 pm; edited 1 time in total

KomissarBojanchev wrote:USSR would be highly superior in that field except the cheiftain with its superpowerful cannon of the time, thick armor and state of the art crew protection would balance it out a bit.

Chieftan was an overrated joke.

Shit armor. Shit mobility. Huge weight.

It fared poorly in Iran-Iraq as a result. Hell, its detonation photos are no better than any T-64 in Ukraine.

chieftain wasn't as good as it seems (just like the centurion, a truly over rated tank), but it wasn't as bad either. Armour was poor overall, but it would have been a fantastic tank in hull down defense. Gun + FCS were top of the era, but reliability & mobility were appaling. I think in the hands of brits it would have fared nicely. Iranians... Lol. Yep it seems frontal armour wasn't sufficient to stop 115mm shots, even less 125mm.

KomissarBojanchev wrote:USSR would be highly superior in that field except the cheiftain with its superpowerful cannon of the time, thick armor and state of the art crew protection would balance it out a bit.

Chieftan was an overrated joke.

Shit armor. Shit mobility. Huge weight.

It fared poorly in Iran-Iraq as a result. Hell, its detonation photos are no better than any T-64 in Ukraine.

Nonsense to be honest. Although the Iranians were not entirely happy with the reliability of its engine - similar to the T-64's engine and probably no less reliable. Certainly underpowered and slow. The Iranians still use it in their army, BTW.

Back to your subject about who is the best tank during 1975.During the past, I knew a friend of mine who was algerian, he participated beside egyptian army in the battle of Sinai. He asserted me that the T-62 was far better than the M-60 -thanks to its redoutable smoothbore cannon-, and better than every other Nato tank -Leopard excepted-. He said me the T-62 behaved like very well, and was very reliable, the tank, as the AT3 Sagger took score of Israeli tanks. More than 2.000 israelis tanks, and armored vehicles were destroyed or disabled. This guy was very meticulous, he took thoroughly several photos of israeli tanks burnt, and he took several photos of US israeli dead soldiers, and prisoners, and many of them were...americans. Unfortunetly, in that time, I did not believe him, prefering to believe US-Israeli hoax stories. In that time, he asked me to help him, how to scan images, and photos, and he wanted to post them in...wikipedia.However, the first thing that did wikipedia is to censure his stories, and his stories. Revealing the world that wikipedia is not a free encyclopedia, but rather an israeli media. My friend nicknamed Wikipedia, as Jewikipedia. My friend was very angry about Wikipedia.In that time I did not realize what he said, unfortunetly, now I understood what he said me.

For that reason, I asked to people of Russia to implement a new encyclopedia better than Wikipedia, without Israeli, and zionist governement, association censureships.

During 1975, the T-62 was with the Leopard 1 the top tank in the world. The M-60 was the great disapointment.

Wikipedia is abused by all kinds of lobbies, here in germany big companies like mercedes pay people to erease several times of bad topics that were posted in wikipedia of "recalls of cars" and edited lot of things to less image damaging stuff or deleted it all together.

Wikipedia like YT and Google which are among the most visited sides are constantly controlled and observed by lobbies and countries, several times already ANNA News was deleted by "copyright issues" which ANNA News holds all themselfs but the alternative media is a thorn in the eyes of western empire USA, same with private journalists who use YT as their main plattform since they can not pay for real studio and several off them have closed accounts for "copy right" or under videolinks "this account was deleted by the (user)" and other nonsense claims like here in Germany GEMA which is a company that is abusing its rights to block videos or sue people for use copyright stuff of usually Musicians but they have blocked Live Stream of Maidan of RT already with this claim of GEMA music copyright bullshit and so on.

Hasbara jews are very active on Youtube for every video that mentions the words israel,jews, palestinia/palestinians, they are also very active on wikishmedia and delete,ban users and articles that are politically not in good light for israhell.

KomissarBojanchev wrote:USSR would be highly superior in that field except the cheiftain with its superpowerful cannon of the time, thick armor and state of the art crew protection would balance it out a bit.

Chieftan was an overrated joke.

Shit armor. Shit mobility. Huge weight.

It fared poorly in Iran-Iraq as a result. Hell, its detonation photos are no better than any T-64 in Ukraine.

Nonsense to be honest. Although the Iranians were not entirely happy with the reliability of its engine - similar to the T-64's engine and probably no less reliable. Certainly underpowered and slow. The Iranians still use it in their army, BTW.

Not nonsense. Prove me wrong, specifically about the armor. Google up what its hull thickness and composition is.

Iranians are under sanctions, they use old stuff because they have no alternative without having an own MIC, same as any other embargooed country, North Korea, like Iraq was and that does not make a tank good if you use an embargooed country as an argument which will certainly not reflect good light on the tank.

Werewolf wrote:Wikipedia is abused by all kinds of lobbies, here in germany big companies like mercedes pay people to erease several times of bad topics that were posted in wikipedia of "recalls of cars" and edited lot of things to less image damaging stuff or deleted it all together.

Wikipedia like YT and Google which are among the most visited sides are constantly controlled and observed by lobbies and countries, several times already ANNA News was deleted by "copyright issues" which ANNA News holds all themselfs but the alternative media is a thorn in the eyes of western empire USA, same with private journalists who use YT as their main plattform since they can not pay for real studio and several off them have closed accounts for "copy right" or under videolinks "this account was deleted by the (user)" and other nonsense claims like here in Germany GEMA which is a company that is abusing its rights to block videos or sue people for use copyright stuff of usually Musicians but they have blocked Live Stream of Maidan of RT already with this claim of GEMA music copyright bullshit and so on.

Hasbara jews are very active on Youtube for every video that mentions the words israel,jews, palestinia/palestinians, they are also very active on wikishmedia and delete,ban users and articles that are politically not in good light for israhell.

The problem with Wikipedia, they are very vicious. Vicious, because they tried not hurt Russia -soviet's weapons credibility-, enough to boast, to brag, the pretended invicibility of israelis soldiers, and enough to attract you in wikipedia, hence deterring -Russia, Egypt, North Vietnam, Syria, etc...- the rest of non western world to build, or implement a new independant wikipedia.

Indeed, about the T-62 what you could read...

...During the Yom Kippur war, the T-62 was an effective adversary for Israeli Patton and Centurion main battle tanks armed with 105 mm tank guns. The T-62 had an advantage in its better night-fighting capability, but Syrian losses were heavy. The Israelis captured several of these tanks from the Syrians in 1973, and put some of them into service as the Tiran-3...

You notice, they named october 1973's war, as Kippur war, arabs name 1973's war as ramadhan's war. Just only with this quote, it gives the identity of those who are responsible of wikipedia.Against Israel, the T-62 seemed be effective, well, but only again Centurion, and M-48. And the M-60 ?The response of this israeli censor is in another vicious quote.

...was converted because the new US made M60 main battle tanks started arriving in Israel...

Half of lie, and half of truth. The M-60 was delivered in Israel around end of 1970. And many M-60 that participated in sinai's battlefield with israeli's army and with US army. This is what my friend asserted me, if I did not believe him in the past, more than never, I believed him now.

Following by this stupid quote :

....The Iraqi T-62s performed well against opposing Iranian tanks such as M48s, M60A1s and Chieftains in the Iran-Iraq war. Iraqi T-62 participated in the biggest tank battle of the war in early 1981. Iran has lost 200 Chieftain and M60A1 tanks during battle. In return, Iraq has lost 50 T-62 tanks. The remaining Iranian armor, turned about and withdrew

As U can see , there is a big contradiction between the first quote, and the secund quote. The T-62 with its redoutable smoothbore gun did a toll against the western -the same israeli standard- iranian' tanks, during 1981. As you can see, the T-62 is really effective against all the panoply of western tank. Well, the T-62 is effective against western tank if and only if its ennemies are not israelis. What does it mean ? U have all the response.

In Wikipedia you could see the same stupidity when look for about Phantom F-4, egyptian, syrian, iraqi Mig-21 and Su-7. How a heavy fighter who completly failed during Vietnam war with US hand could be successfull with israelis' hands ?The Mig-21 is light fighter-bomber, very agile, nevertheless, not as Mig-17, but far better than the F-4 Phantom II, you can easily imagine what would be the result in dogfight, chiefly, knowing the evidence that you will have to fire 20 air-air missiles in hoping to down a single ennemy fighter.During the october 1973 Israel was near the disparition, they were ready to launch nuclear weapons -Jericho missiles- against Egypt and Syria, after, that US and nato partners launched their huge bridgehead and US participated directly in combat.The result was catastrophic too, and US threatened to use nuclear weapons, Soviet Union was constrainted to limit the help to Egypt, and Syria.

The T-62 during the seventies -I suppose untill now- was beside the Leopard I the best tank in the world. The facts prove that. If, indeed, the T-62 suffered heavy losses, this is not because of soviet technology, but because of the concept of the tank itself. US Phantom -as they outnumbered egyptian air force, because EAF suffered with lack of spare parts- bombed the bataillon of tanks, even with that, the result was mixed. But the T-62 staid intrinsically one the best tank in world during the seventies. No use to tell you more about the T-72. Even now, in fair conditions, I suspect the powerfull gun of the T-72 could still burnt the M1-Abrams, Merkava, or every western tank.

The leopard 1 until the A4 variant was worthless piece of crap due to complete lack shellstopping armor(70mm RHA max in A1 variant), large size, not enough mobility to justify such light armor. Its gun was still average by 70s standards. M-60A1 was a far better tank. Even T-34-85 given it went into range could easily destroy all leopard 1 variants of the 70s from the front.

We have a family friend that served in a bulgarian people's army tank troops in the 80s. He operated T-55, T-54M, T-34-85, T-62, T-72M1,T-34-76(yes we had them as a last reserve armored pillboxes). His opinion about the T-62 was generally neutral(he praised the T-54M and T-72M1however) but stressed as a major disadvantage the extreme crampness of the vehicle giving very little moving space, and combined with the massive 115mm unitary shells the loader's job was extremely tiresome and more inefficient compared to the T-55 due to its smaller 100mm round and T-34-85 which was a limousine in a comfort comparison to the T-62. He was however confident that his unit could've effectively held off a theoretical attack by the turkish army M-60s until soviet rienforcements came(that was the principle objective of the Bulgarian people's army during the cold war)

As for the M-60, it had better rate of fire and hull armor as far as I know, while the T-62 had a lower profile and better APSFDS ammo until the 80s when all development of 115mm shells stopped.

KomissarBojanchev wrote:The leopard 1 until the A4 variant was worthless piece of crap due to complete lack shellstopping armor(70mm RHA max in A1 variant), large size, not enough mobility to justify such light armor. Its gun was still average by 70s standards. M-60A1 was a far better tank. Even T-34-85 given it went into range could easily destroy all leopard 1 variants of the 70s from the front.

I have not enough clues -U must be know better than me- about this subject, nevertheless, the friend I talked about certified me that the Leopard 1, was during the 70's the state of the art in tank technology.About the M-60 or Centurion etc...were far behind the t-62 and its powerfull gun. Concerning the comfort, it was well known that soviet tank are not area where you take pleasure, they are not living room as inside the M1-Abrams, or AMX-40 Leclerc, else the Leopard.As the tank is not decisiive in war, soviet statregists thought tank as tool to occupy the battlefield, immedialtly after the total control of the sky. For that reason the inside soviet tank is rather spartan

TR1 wrote:Not nonsense. Prove me wrong, specifically about the armor. Google up what its hull thickness and composition is.

And no, cold war-era myths don't apply.

Iranians use lots of old crap, that doesn't mean anything.

You are the one making the bold statements that such and such a product is "shit" - the onus is on you to back up such a statement - not for me to refute it. BTW you mentioned that the T-64 is not surviving too well in Ukraine, couldn't you say the same about all other Soviet era tanks - are they all shit as well because they can't survive an RPG in the rearß

TR1 wrote:Not nonsense. Prove me wrong, specifically about the armor. Google up what its hull thickness and composition is.

And no, cold war-era myths don't apply.

Iranians use lots of old crap, that doesn't mean anything.

You are the one making the bold statements that such and such a product is "shit" - the onus is on you to back up such a statement - not for me to refute it. BTW, you mentioned that the T-64 is not surviving too well in Ukraine, couldn't you say the same about all other Soviet era tanks - are they also all shit as well because they can't survive an RPG in the rear?

TR1 wrote:Not nonsense. Prove me wrong, specifically about the armor. Google up what its hull thickness and composition is.

And no, cold war-era myths don't apply.

Iranians use lots of old crap, that doesn't mean anything.

You are the one making the bold statements that such and such a product is "shit" - the onus is on you to back up such a statement - not for me to refute it. BTW you mentioned that the T-64 is not surviving too well in Ukraine, couldn't you say the same about all other Soviet era tanks - are they all shit as well because they can't survive an RPG in the rearß

Your ignorance is not my problem. You want to actually learn something about tanks- go on any of the good tank forums (tank.net, otvaga, etc) and ask around as to the Cheiftans armor layout. It was not good, and for the weight, it was laughable.

My mention was about T-64 exploding, not surviving. We don't know the circumstances of the T-64 destruction, but frankly if the Ukranian army had any other tank we would be seeing as or close to as many burned out hulls. I brought the T-64 up because in almost every instance it suffers what seems to be a serious catastrophic detonation with the hull being torn apart- much greater than any other tank I have seen. That is why it is getting flack right now, not because its actual armor scheme was bad for the day.

There are pics of Chieftan being blown apart in Iran-Iraq, hence why it being supremely safe for the crew is a myth.

TR1 wrote:Not nonsense. Prove me wrong, specifically about the armor. Google up what its hull thickness and composition is.

And no, cold war-era myths don't apply.

Iranians use lots of old crap, that doesn't mean anything.

You are the one making the bold statements that such and such a product is "shit" - the onus is on you to back up such a statement - not for me to refute it. BTW you mentioned that the T-64 is not surviving too well in Ukraine, couldn't you say the same about all other Soviet era tanks - are they all shit as well because they can't survive an RPG in the rearß

Your ignorance is not my problem. You want to actually learn something about tanks- go on any of the good tank forums (tank.net, otvaga, etc) and ask around as to the Cheiftans armor layout. It was not good, and for the weight, it was laughable.

My mention was about T-64 exploding, not surviving. We don't know the circumstances of the T-64 destruction, but frankly if the Ukranian army had any other tank we would be seeing as or close to as many burned out hulls. I brought the T-64 up because in almost every instance it suffers what seems to be a serious catastrophic detonation with the hull being torn apart- much greater than any other tank I have seen. That is why it is getting flack right now, not because its actual armor scheme was bad for the day.

There are pics of Chieftan being blown apart in Iran-Iraq, hence why it being supremely safe for the crew is a myth.

I have been to Tank-net - they are pretty inconclusive as to the survivability of any tank, from east or west, from that cold war period. The fact that you have seen pictures of Chieftains completely destroyed mean snothing - we have the same kind of pictures for every type of soviet tank: T-54/T-55/T-62/T-64/T-72. The final conclusion is the same full penetration from the side or the rear, either from heavy tank. gun or RPGs.

That diagram has done the rounds, btw, is it completely accurate, is it not Soviet sourced?

The T-64 explodes because all 22 propellent charges are exposed on the floor of the turret, so any penetration will shower hot fragments of metal onto cardboard impregnated with propellent that is designed to be completely consumed when the round is fired.

When all 22 propellent stubs are ignited of course the tank is going to explode.

A T-72 with a full load of ammo will suffer a similar fate when the propellent stubs of the spare ammo in the crew compartment ignites.

A T-72 with only 22 rounds in the autoloader is much much safer, but not invulnerable to penetration.

In the 70s the Soviet Union had already deployed many T-64s and T-72s but nato only had M60s Chieftains and Leopard 1s.

What would happen if there was a tank battle between Soviet armor and nato during the 70s?

The M60 and Leopard have only got 105mm L7 rifled guns and Homogeneous armor (practicaly none in the case of the Leo) and the cheiftan has a 120mm rifled gun but as far as I am know has a really weak lower plate of only 76mm steel to cover the driver and ammunition storage whereas the T-64 and 72 have composite armor and 125mm smoothbore guns.

The cold war is full of period of action and reaction, where the introduction of one item or another gave one side an edge for a while while the other side scrambled to improve or replace its counterpart to make it more effective.

You can see it in aircraft too... where the US probably thought it was miles ahead of the Soviets with their Shooting Stars and the Sabre on the way... of course the west was pretty confident most of the time anyway because of general ignorance of Soviet systems and equipment.

To a western person the 1970s had Mig-23s and MiG-21s vs F-15s and F-16s so the west had the upper hand in air power then. the slow introduction of the MiG-29 and Su-27 responses to those western aircraft restored the balance somewhat in the eyes of western experts... but of course the high off boresight AAMs like the R-73 and the passive radar homing versions of the AA-10 would have rendered the Sparrow useless and the western fighters equally in dire straights...the anti radiation R-27ER would have guided on the signal of a locked Sparrow missile making the F-15 that launched that missile vulnerable to attack by the target it was firing upon... the R-27ER being a faster missile means bad news for the F-15. In WVR combat the helmet mounted sights and R-73s would have made it very dangerous to be a NATO pilot in that period.

As you mention the situation on the ground was better in the 1970s but the improvement in armour in the 1980s was largely matched with improvements in Soviet armour and ERA material too, so the Soviet ground forces didn't suddenly become obsolete in the 1980s.

Experience in the Middle East shows even Konkurs can penetrate Abrams tanks, so all those ATGMs would have been a serious problem for NATO too.

I never said soviet armor in the 80s was obsolete the M1 abrams had an obsolete gun and not so mutch armor the Americans only chaught up with the Soviets with the introduction of the M1a1 in the mid 80s and that means it would go up against the T-80U but thats not as unfair as T-72 and T-64 vs the primitive nato tanks of the 70s

The-thing-next-door wrote:I never said soviet armor in the 80s was obsolete the M1 abrams had an obsolete gun and not so mutch armor the Americans only chaught up with the Soviets with the introduction of the M1a1 in the mid 80s and that means it would go up against the T-80U but thats not as unfair as T-72 and T-64 vs the primitive nato tanks of the 70s